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Speakers CornerAir your opinion on current world affairs. A forum for civil discussion and exchange of ideas. No flaming or abuse allowed. All posts should include your opinion on the subject, not your opinion of the member posting.

...a little-known but influential private membership based organization has placed itself at the center of advising and coordinating the crackdown on the encampments. The Police Executive Research Forum, an international non-governmental organization with ties to law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has been coordinating conference calls with major metropolitan mayors and police chiefs to advise them on policing matters and discuss response to the Occupy movement. The group has distributed a recently published guide on policing political events....

The coordination of political crackdowns on the Occupy movement has been conducted behind closed doors, with city officials and PERF refusing to say how many cities participated in the conference calls and the exact nature of the discussions. Reports of at least a dozen cities and some indication of as many as 40 accepting PERF advice and/or strategic documents include San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Portland [Oregon], Oakland, Atlanta, and Washington DC....PERF coordinated a November 10 conference call with city police chiefs across the country – and many of these cities undertook crackdowns shortly afterward.

Boonme, you really should go back to the states. It's too dangerous for you out here. I bet your grandfather vacationed in Switzerland during world war 2 because the troops were protecting his freedom, too. Maybe I am wrong about you. Do you plan to move to Afghanistan or Iraq with your wife soon? Your freedom is protected.

USA Today/Gallup Poll: Overwhelming Majority of Americans Could Care Less About Occupy Wall Street, 11 Point Jump In Disapproval Rating

"A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows that the “Occupy” movement has failed to capture the attention of a majority of Americans, indicating either ambivalence toward it or lack of interest.

The poll finds that 56% of Americans surveyed are neither supporters nor opponents and 59% say they don’t know enough to have an opinion about the movement’s goals.

The survey, however, does show an increase from 20% to 31% in disapproval of the way the protests are being conducted.

Results are based on phone interviews Saturday and Sunday on the Gallup Daily tracking survey, with a random sample of 996 adults, ages 18 or over, living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, chosen using random-digit dial sample"

But forgiving student loan debt is a very bad idea for at least three reasons.1. These loans are voluntary. All borrowers are excrutiatingly well-informed of how much they’re borrowing and how much they’re going to have to pay back.About half of all college students take out loans and when they do, every lender clearly spells out exactly how much you’re on the hook for and what your monthly payments are going to be after you leave school.

Critics say that 18-year-olds don’t understand what they’re getting into and shouldn’t be held accountable for their decisions. But that’s an argument against letting kids attend college, not against letting them borrow against future earnings to get a degree that will increase lifetime earnings by somewhere between about $280,000 and $1 million.

2. The amounts being borrowed are hardly overwhelming. While the cumulative total of all college-related debt is huge – approaching a trillion dollars, it’s bigger than credit-card debt – it’s not so big for individuals. The typical college graduate who borrowed money to attend graduates owing about $25,000. They’ve got a minimum of 10 years to pay back that amount and the repayment schedule can be extended and modified for a wide variety of reasons.

The monthly payment for $25,000 in student loans at going rates comes to around $290 a month. That’s not chump change. But given that the that college grads have unemployment rates that are less than half the national average and that the average salary offer for graduating seniors is almost $50,000, the loan amount isn’t so bad either.

3. Bailouts are never a good idea. Like Tea Party activists, Occupy Wall Street protesters are right to rail against bailouts for big banks and financial institutions that are politically connected. But student loan forgiveness advocates are wrong to perpetuate yet another cycle of bailouts. It’s never right to socialize losses while privatizing gains. That’s what the banks did – they risked their money on stupid investments and then got made whole at the expense of taxpayers. Student loan forgiveness is simply another version of the same swindle. And it offloads the costs of other people’s decisions onto taxpayers, who guarantee federally backed student loans.

College is an important decision – and it’s made even more expensive by heavily subsidized loans. But letting people off the hook for loans they made with full knowledge of the costs will not only dissuade anyone from lending to students with no collateral other than their future work output. It will make it that much harder to argue against the next call for bailouts from the next group of special interests."

Great video HansuMan. The end really explains how the mainstream media isn't covering this honestly.

So you think that having one highly biased reporter interview another highly biased reporter is good media coverage? That is exactly what that video interview is. One is feeding the other carefully scripted questions to get the exact responses required.... even puts the right words into the others mouth at times....but when the "mainstream" media does this it's immoral and dishonest?

In other words if the "media" is not telling you what you want to hear, it must be wrong. It's a good video. Well scripted by two professional journalists....but to suggest that it's objective reporting is just nonsense.

It's no better (or worse) than Fox and Friends where they feed each other scripted questions and answers in the same way...and always totally agree with each other...."absolutely" is the most frequently used word on Fox interviews and "debates".

Fox gets hammered constantly for this, but here we are pouring praise on these two characters for doing exactly the same thing....because they are giving us the real inside "truth" that we want to hear.

I could just feel the love in NYC....it's pouring rain, I'm freezing my butt off, but it's really beautiful man....amazing.....I'm breaking bread with communists, fucking liberals, and crapping on cop cars.....we're bringing down the 1%; have no fear Brother.....

Great video HansuMan. The end really explains how the mainstream media isn't covering this honestly.

the lamestream media are deceivers on a mass scale- lies, omissions, distortions, repetition of the irrelevant, misdirection; and mind-slaves like booner lap it all up and even man their keyboard commando battle stations propagating the LSM's deceptions all over discussion boards, like ol' Boxer the horse. Sad.

Rudkowski broke down what's going on nicely in that interview.

also see (video inside)- OWS might find common cause with tea party- OMG booner just shit a brick- all his "hard work" regurgitating LSM & wingnut blog emotion-tugger spew trying to make the 2 movements appear as night and day, OMG!!

by Jonathan Larsen and Ken Olshansky
(crossposted from MSNBC's "Open Channel" blog)
A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.

According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.”

The memo also suggests that Democratic victories in 2012 should not be the ABA’s biggest concern. “… (T)he bigger concern,” the memo says, “should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.”

Two of the memo’s authors, partners Sam Geduldig and Jay Cranford, previously worked for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Geduldig joined CLGC before Boehner became speaker; Cranford joined CLGC this year after serving as the speaker’s assistant for policy. A third partner, Steve Clark, is reportedly “tight” with Boehner, according to a story by Roll Call that CLGC features on its website.
Jeff Sigmund, an ABA spokesperson, confirmed that the association got the memo. “Our Government Relations staff did receive the proposal – it was unsolicited and we chose not to act on it in any way,” he said in a statement to "Up."
CLGC did not return calls seeking comment.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to comment on the memo. But he responded to its characterization of Republicans as defenders of Wall Street by saying, “My understanding is that President Obama is the single largest recipient of donations from Wall Street.”

On “Up” Saturday, Anita Dunn, Obama campaign adviser, responded by saying that the majority of the president’s re-election campaign is fueled by small donors. She rejected the suggestion that the president himself is too close to Wall Street, saying “If that’s the case, why were tough financial reforms passed over party line Republican opposition?”

The CLGC memo raises another issue that it says should be of concern to the financial industry -- that OWS might find common cause with the Tea Party.

“Well-known Wall Street companies stand at the nexus of where OWS protestors and the Tea Party overlap on angered populism,” the memo says. “…This combination has the potential to be explosive later in the year when media reports cover the next round of bonuses and contrast it with stories of millions of Americans making do with less this holiday season.”

The memo outlines a 60-day plan to conduct surveys and research on OWS and its supporters so that Wall Street companies will be prepared to conduct a media campaign in response to OWS. Wall Street companies “likely will not be the best spokespeople for their own cause,” according to the memo. “A big challenge is to demonstrate that these companies still have political strength and that making them a political target will carry a severe political cost.”

Part of the plan CLGC proposes is to do “statewide surveys in at least eight states that are shaping up to be the most important of the 2012 cycle.”

Specific races listed in the memo are U.S. Senate races in Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Mexico and Nevada as well as the gubernatorial race in North Carolina.

The memo indicates that CLGC would research who has contributed financial backing to OWS, noting that, “Media reports have speculated about associations with George Soros and others.”

"It will be vital,” the memo says, “to understand who is funding it and what their backgrounds and motives are. If we can show that they have the same cynical motivation as a political opponent it will undermine their credibility in a profound way.”

But forgiving student loan debt is a very bad idea for at least three reasons.1. These loans are voluntary. All borrowers are excrutiatingly well-informed of how much they’re borrowing and how much they’re going to have to pay back.About half of all college students take out loans and when they do, every lender clearly spells out exactly how much you’re on the hook for and what your monthly payments are going to be after you leave school.

Critics say that 18-year-olds don’t understand what they’re getting into and shouldn’t be held accountable for their decisions. But that’s an argument against letting kids attend college, not against letting them borrow against future earnings to get a degree that will increase lifetime earnings by somewhere between about $280,000 and $1 million.

2. The amounts being borrowed are hardly overwhelming. While the cumulative total of all college-related debt is huge – approaching a trillion dollars, it’s bigger than credit-card debt – it’s not so big for individuals. The typical college graduate who borrowed money to attend graduates owing about $25,000. They’ve got a minimum of 10 years to pay back that amount and the repayment schedule can be extended and modified for a wide variety of reasons.

The monthly payment for $25,000 in student loans at going rates comes to around $290 a month. That’s not chump change. But given that the that college grads have unemployment rates that are less than half the national average and that the average salary offer for graduating seniors is almost $50,000, the loan amount isn’t so bad either.

3. Bailouts are never a good idea. Like Tea Party activists, Occupy Wall Street protesters are right to rail against bailouts for big banks and financial institutions that are politically connected. But student loan forgiveness advocates are wrong to perpetuate yet another cycle of bailouts. It’s never right to socialize losses while privatizing gains. That’s what the banks did – they risked their money on stupid investments and then got made whole at the expense of taxpayers. Student loan forgiveness is simply another version of the same swindle. And it offloads the costs of other people’s decisions onto taxpayers, who guarantee federally backed student loans.

College is an important decision – and it’s made even more expensive by heavily subsidized loans. But letting people off the hook for loans they made with full knowledge of the costs will not only dissuade anyone from lending to students with no collateral other than their future work output. It will make it that much harder to argue against the next call for bailouts from the next group of special interests."

Bailout the fatcats and allow them to use bailout money to pay themselves multi million dollar bonuses with the bailout money but force poor students into a lifetime of debt.
The reason they don't want the student loans forgiven is the amount of interest they will earn on it.
Anyone who says different is just being manipulated by them.

^ There is a major difference from Fox news. This is just one little video. Fox hammers its garbage home 24 hours a day 7 days a week. A pathetic comparison.

Jasus.bsnub, you are a hard one. The comparison was not supposed to be of a little video versus the big bad Fox corporation. The comparison was of the technique involved in propagating what is supposed to be unbiased and objective reporting when in fact it is just scripted and biased BS. The point being that FOX and your "ojective" left wing journalists do the same things......it's just that the FOX has more volume than most others.

Sorry to drag you away from your "Revolutionary Camping and Outdoor living guide".....but I though that I should just clarify that small point.....